YEREVAN, JUNE 21, ARMENPRESS. Armenia has a beautiful mountainous landscape, abundant nature, Armenian traditional cuisine, and hospitable human factor which is very important. This is the reason that tourists, except from the traditional forms of historical-cultural tourism, prefer also agritourism in Armenia, head of the Tourism Department of the Armenian Ministry of Economy Mekhak Apresyan said in an interview with “Armenpress”.

-Mr. Apresyan, in what stage is agritourism in Armenia? Are there any development opportunities, new projects?

-First of all, I would like to explain the meaning of agritourism and how it differs from the rural tourism. Visiting rural areas and using rural resources are called rural tourism, whereas, agritourism means when the tourist personally takes part in the rural life, communicates with the rural people, participates in the rural works.

Armenia provides the opportunity of this, agritourism is developing in different directions.

There are new projects aimed at creating tourism homes in the rural places which leads to the increase of tourism homes both in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. These projects are being implemented in cooperation with the state, private and international structures. Moreover, with the state assistance, various events are being conducted such as traditional holidays, festivals which are aimed for revealing, developing, strengthening and presenting the economic and tourism potential of the rural areas both to the domestic and international markets.

-Which Armenian settlements do have a potential for agritourism development?

-It will be difficult to say what rural settlements do not have such potential. It depends on weather conditions, development opportunities, the resources that particular region has, just directions may vary.

-Are the rural infrastructures ready to develop agritourism?

-We cannot say they aren’t ready, but we cannot also say we have nothing to do. Having a progress, we also have problems. There is a need of both knowledge and infrastructure development. As I said there are new projects and other projects that relate to the infrastructure development and the necessary human resource training.  

-Do the rural people demonstrate willingness to serve their economies for the development of agritourism?

-Yes, they do, but not completely. Here there is a need of increasing awareness through trainings, seminars about the role of tourism. They should understand that involving tourists in their activities, they will have an opportunity to have an additional source of income, additional employment, wide consumer markets for their products and to expand their productivity. However, in line with this, they must keep their traditions in order for tourist to understand that he/she is in Armenia in a hospitable home. If we lose this, no one will be interested in agritourism in Armenia.  

-Is there an interest towards this type of tourism?

-Yes, there is and the interest is gradually increasing. Foreign tourists especially from Europe are interested and many of them are not so much interested in staying at luxury hotels and engaging in urban life. The interest is increasing also within the local people.

-“Armenpress” conducted a survey among tourism agencies of Armenia and revealed that no one of them has such a package. Is this as a result of a lack of demand?

-Various tourism agencies are concentrated in different directions and since this type of tourism is “younger” and developing compared to other ones, it is natural that not all tourism agencies can provide such packages.

Vahe Hakobyan